In Dust and Ashes

by Anne Holt

  “And you’re quite sure the clothes Anna threw away that day were the same ones that Dina was wearing on the day she died?”

  “If they weren’t the same ones, then they were exact copies. The same hat, the same bag. The same blue snowsuit and little Cherrox boots. I honestly thought it was strange that they had kept them all. Anna had been busy, clearing things out all through that autumn. If I’d been her, those clothes would have been what I threw out first. The death clothes.”

  He picked up a cushion. This time he clasped it to his stomach and wrapped his arms around it. His smile was still strained.

  “Or maybe it would have been the other way round,” he said. “Maybe those would have been the clothes I got rid of last of all.”

  “I think that’s how it was,” Henrik said, getting up from the chair. “I think Anna threw away the very last traces of Dina that very morning. That was the day, New Year’s Eve 2003, that she finished packing her daughter away. And her own life too.”

  “The day she died?” Heikki Pettersen said, almost startled. “What an odd coincidence. Do you really think so?”

  “More milk.”

  “We don’t have any more, sorry.”

  Hedda thumped the glass on the table and pushed away the plate and half-eaten slice of bread.

  “Want more milk!” she cried, defiantly jutting out her bottom lip.

  “A fizzy drink,” Jonas said hurriedly. “You can have a fizzy drink, if you like.”

  Hedda’s pout was transformed into a broad smile.

  “Cola?”

  “Yes, you can have cola with lunch. That’ll be good, won’t it?”

  He opened the fridge and took out a can that he opened as he crossed the room. When the froth threatened to spill over, he grabbed the milk glass and poured it in.

  “Milk cola,” he said and put the glass in front of her. “Really good. Eat up the rest of your bread, please, my pet.”

  He really had to do some shopping.

  They were running out of fresh food. Also, the kid needed more clothes. Last night he had washed the pants she had been wearing since he snatched her. There had only been one extra pair in the bag beneath the buggy. Her sweater was splattered with ketchup stains and milk splashes. Even though she was bathed every evening, she was beginning to smell disgusting because of her clothes.

  He had to do some shopping, but he couldn’t leave the little girl. And he certainly couldn’t take her with him.

  This was not the plan, he thought, as he gazed at Hedda. She had already drunk half the disgusting milky cola and had her mouth full of bread. A one-armed Barbie doll lay on the table before her, and she was busy wrapping it in a pink baby blanket. The box of leavings from the previous tenant had turned out to be a treasure trove for the toddler. She had not made a fuss about other toys since she had been permitted to empty it all out on the living room floor and found the blond doll with the bizarre body shape among all the games and books, Lego bricks, toy cars and a blind, brown teddy bear.

  This definitely wasn’t the plan, and now he had to take some action.

  Of course he needed to go shopping. If he simply did what he had to do, then he could sit down and wait for the police. Sooner or later they would turn up, and if he hesitated any longer, he might land back in prison with unfinished business on his mind. There was more than enough canned food in the house for him to hold out here for a long time. But only if he didn’t have to look after the little girl.

  She was so lovely.

  This morning he had woken when she kicked him in the side. Hedda slept like a helicopter, spinning round in the bed all night long. At about two o’clock he had got up for a piss, and she had been lying on her back with her head at the footboard, her arms and legs spread out, like a little star. She took up all the space in the bed. Quite naturally, just as Dina had so often forced him to the edge of the bed and sometimes even to wake with a start when he fell on the floor.

  Anna had never been there on those nights.

  When Dina crawled into their bed during the night, Anna moved into the guest bedroom and stayed there until morning. Jonas was the one who grew accustomed to having a helicopter in the bed.

  Anna thought she was a bad mother. It wasn’t true. She had never said anything of the kind before Dina died. On the contrary – they were both happy with their existence at Stugguveien 2B. Anna had both time and space to outshine all the others at selling cars and to meet all the friends she found so important. For exercise and shooting. As for himself, he had wanted a child for as long as he could remember, and spending far more time with Dina than her mother did was his own choice. The best choice in his life.

  His choice of life.

  Anna was so pleased with him that she had grown receptive to the idea of making a sister for Dina. Or a brother. Another child.

  She was a good mother. She had loved Dina and been kind to her. Caring and firm and perhaps a little stricter than Jonas. It had been good for Dina, and Jonas had shrieked it at her one night in an endless series of horrendous nights: You were a good mother, Anna!

  It had not helped. Nothing had helped when Dina died, and now he must soon take the life of the child who looked so terribly like her that it was simply impossible.

  “Pictotto?” Hedda asked, looking up at him.

  He had opened the laptop on the kitchen worktop, turning it away so that she could not glimpse the screen. VG Nett was set as the default home page, and the headline screamed at him.

  Police Search for Dark-Colored Golf, Probably Blue

  Jonas felt a cramp in his groin. His car was dark green, but it was close. His throat tightened and, opening his mouth to breathe more easily, he forced himself to read on.

  In connection with the abduction of Hedda Bengtson (3), police seek information about a dark-colored Golf, probably an older model, which was parked in Lovisenberggata on Thursday morning. It was driven by a man aged between 50 and 60, possibly of foreign origin. The police emphasize that this is only one of many tip-offs from the public, and that in the first instance they wish only to speak to the owner of the vehicle.

  Jonas struggled to breathe more deeply. He felt dizzy and to be on the safe side, he used the kitchen worktop for support.

  Jonas Abrahamsen was forty-seven years old and extremely pale. He was Norwegian and blue-eyed, with sparse gray hair and almost completely bald. Admittedly, the witness could not know that, because he had pulled his black cap so far down his forehead that he had to push it out of his eyes now and again during his walk from the kindergarten to the undoubtedly rather elderly Golf.

  They had made a lot of mistakes, but some of it was correct. They were closing in.

  “Pictotto?” Hedda repeated impatiently.

  “Not now,” Jonas said, forcing out a smile for the toddler. “Not just yet, my lamb.”

  Henrik Holme had not walked farther than two minutes from Stugguveien 2A when he stopped short. As he fished his cellphone from his pocket he noticed his hands were shaking. A car drove past him far too fast, and three children about the age of ten who were approaching him on foot took off their mittens and gave the driver the finger. It had started to rain. The north wind was so biting that Henrik crossed the road and sought refuge beside a garage wall.

  “Bonsaksen here,” barked a voice at the other end of the line.

  “Hello. This is Henrik Holme here.”

  “Hello there! You should be here, you know! Brilliant sunshine and warm – fifteen degrees, and it’ll soon be time for a beer.”

  “Sounds great. It’s raining cats and dogs here. I’d just like–”

  “What’s this about?”

  Either the connection was bad, or else Kjell Bonsaksen was standing beside a roaring waterfall. Henrik had the distinct impression that there weren’t many of them in Provence, so he asked to be allowed to ring back.

  The new line was better.

  “Have you made any progress?” Bonsaksen asked. “With my ring binder, I me
an?”

  “Well, I’m still working on it.”

  “Let me hear!”

  Henrik’s fingers were already growing numb and he pressed closer to the eaves of the gray garage.

  “I’m not very well-placed at the moment, so if we could do that later, it’d–”

  “Next week I’ll be back in Norway to sort out some paperwork. I’m arriving on Sunday night. We can meet for a coffee, eh? Or even dinner? Everyone needs to eat!”

  “That sounds good. Right now I’ve just got one brief question.”

  “Fire away!”

  Kjell Bonsaksen was obviously reveling in his new life. His speech was punctuated with exclamation marks and he had a smile in his voice. In the background Henrik could hear glasses clinking, and the buzz of chatter and traffic. It sounded as if he was seated in a sidewalk café.

  “Photos were taken of nearly all the rooms in Anna’s house,” he said. “Even the storeroom was included in the bundle of photographs.”

  “That’s right! As I hope you’ve seen for yourself, we were incredibly thorough. Not a stone was left unturned in that case. It’s been some kind of consolation to me, you know, whenever I’ve had this niggling feeling that Jonas Abrahamsen might be innocent. We did everything we should and could, and then some.”

  “Yes of course,” Henrik said patiently. “But there are no pictures of the daughter’s room.”

  “The daughter?”

  “Yes, Dina. The three-year-old who died two years earlier.”

  “But she was dead!”

  “Yes, but–”

  “There was no child’s room there. Definitely not! Not a trace of a youngster anywhere.”

  Henrik had to shift the phone to his left hand and push the right one into his pocket.

  “But the room,” he insisted. “There must have been a room in the house that had once been Dina’s?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Sounds logical, anyway. But they must have got rid of it. Converted it into …”

  The retired Superintendent suddenly fell silent. Henrik heard a tinkling sound, as if a tray of glasses had been dropped on the floor. He knocked his legs together in an effort to stay warm.

  “Hello?” he said. “Are you there?”

  “One of the rooms was totally empty,” Bonsaksen replied, more slowly now. “And by that I mean really empty. No furniture. Empty cupboards. The wallpaper had been stripped off the walls, as far as I remember. I may be wrong, of course, but I …”

  The sound of footsteps. Engine noise. Henrik could hear a child crying, and then everything went completely quiet.

  “Is that better?” Bonsaksen asked. “I’m in the loo!”

  “Much better.”

  “I thought it was to be redecorated. The door was locked, but the key was in the lock. The technicians also went in there, of course, so it surprises me that there are no pictures of the room in the ring binder. Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I know the case inside out by now.”

  “The only explanation I can think of is that the room was of no interest. Just about to be redecorated. And locked, into the bargain. But you know, I really need to get back to the table. My wife’s busy making us new friends, and she gets really tetchy when I just up and leave. I’ll phone you when I get home to Norway, okay? A cup of coffee or …”

  Henrik was no longer listening.

  The photographs in Bonsaksen’s ring binder agreed with Herdis Brattbakk’s theory. There was no trace of the child in any of them. No old, framed drawings. No photographs, and certainly no sign of any little nook dedicated to her memory, with Dina in a silver frame beside the perpetual flame of a wax candle.

  The empty room at Stugguveien 2B was not going to be redecorated.

  Far from it – it had been stowed away completely, at last. Exactly as the psychologist had feared, Henrik thought as he began to trudge back to the city.

  The apartment in Geitmyrsveien had been totally transformed.

  Bengt Bengtson had been so proud of the place. He had renovated it room by room, almost entirely by himself. An electrician and a plumber had contributed exactly as much as they needed to in order to comply with regulations, but that was all. Bengt had personally revamped the spacious residence from an acceptable apartment into a beautiful home in the course of three months. Christel had been eager to help, but she was not allowed because of her pregnancy. She explained to him about modern, water-based, non-toxic types of paint: to no avail. For half a semester she came home from school to an airy, cool apartment that looked better and better by the day. And she got to choose most of the textiles, furnishings and colors.

  They had both loved that apartment so much.

  One of the first things Christel had said just over a week ago when Turid from Hamar had phoned to offer congratulations on the preposterous prize money was that the little family should stay where they were. She wished for nothing other than that. This was where they belonged and were happy, and it was in St. Hanshaugen that Hedda should grow up. No money in the world could possibly create a better home for the three of them than the one they already had.

  Now the apartment was dead.

  The police had turned the living room into a center of operations. At least that was how it seemed to Bengt. Computers and telecoms equipment were strewn all over the place, and you had to take care not to trip over all the cables that stretched from wherever plug points were situated in the room. Bengt had asked if it was necessary to have so many, but it made no difference. People kept coming and going. He had entirely given up trying to tell them all apart. Sometimes he had the impression that he only had himself to blame, as he and Christel had refused point blank to leave the apartment ever since Thursday afternoon.

  The bedrooms were their places of refuge.

  Christel mostly wanted to be left alone. Some office offering crisis help – Bengt had no idea which one – had stationed a woman in the apartment. She alternated with an older man who had introduced himself as a pastor. The woman took the mornings, and the clergyman the afternoons and evenings. When Christel and Bengt had been unwilling to talk to them, something they eventually made no attempt to do at all, they took turns sitting on a chair they had moved from the kitchen to the hallway. There they sat, still and silent, but always with a sympathetic look every time Bengt walked by.

  “We’re here if you need us,” was all she said from time to time. “Remember we’re here if you need us, Bengt.”

  He could not abide her.

  He and Christel were only ever left in peace at night. The police retained a presence: one person, but only one. Last night it had been a woman, and she had slept for a few hours on the settee in full uniform.

  She was the one who had knocked on his door and asked to speak to him three minutes ago. Now she was sitting on one of the kitchen chairs that she had brought with her into the bedroom. He sat on the bed, with his laptop by his side and a cup of tea on the bedside table.

  “That’s right,” she said, nodding. “We have every reason to raise our hopes with this tip-off. Unfortunately the witness had been working round the clock on an exam at home and barely checked the news until yesterday evening. Then she made contact with us right away.”

  “Exam? Who has exams in January?”

  “Lots of people,” the policewoman said brusquely. “And the information is profoundly interesting.”

  “Why do you say that? There’s next to nothing here!”

  He lightly slapped the laptop screen with the back of his hand.

  “An old, dark-colored Golf and a foreigner, you mean? How much does that tell you?”

  “Now we don’t know for sure that we’re talking about a foreigner. The witness wasn’t certain. He was at least dressed in dark clothes.”

  “Just like about ninety per cent of all men in the fifty to sixty age group at this time of year,” Bengt said, smacking the laptop again. “Don’t you have anything more than that?”

  “Yes we do,” she said calmly.
“We have more. That’s all we can mention at the moment. To the media, I mean. The witness says that the man with the blue … with the dark-colored Golf had just folded up a red sport buggy. He had removed the undercarriage and was putting the bag on the back seat. From the way he was holding it, she definitely thought there was a child inside. He lost his balance, and the car door suddenly opened farther into the road just as the witness was driving past. She had to brake suddenly. She was angry and gave him … she made an obscene gesture as she passed him.”

  Bengt closed his eyes. Christel’s room was still completely silent. Maybe she had fallen asleep. He hoped so. He had nearly blacked out and lost consciousness for an hour or so around three o’clock last night, but that was all the rest he had managed since Thursday morning.

  “One man,” he said softly. “Are you saying that one person has been able to steal a child, take her several hundred meters in her pushchair, drive away with her and still not be caught, more than forty-eight hours later? Without you knowing anything more than that it was an old, dark-colored Golf and a driver who might not be Norwegian? What is he then? Russian? Ex-Yugoslav? What can you …”

  He punched the pillow with his fist and opened his eyes wide. His eyes nailed the slightly built Superintendent. “What are you doing about it?”

  “A great deal. Loads. We’re doing a lot of crosschecking of the information we do nevertheless have. It’s time-consuming, but this may in fact bring us closer to a solution. We’re still getting new tip-offs from the public, but as you understand, it’s a major task to sort the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.”

  Bengt shook his head.

  “Why don’t they ring?” he complained feebly. “They can have everything they want. They can have all the winnings. If only they’d please phone.”

  He grabbed the pillow and buried his face in it. His shoulders were shaking. He drew up his knees and wrapped his arms around them, with the pillow caught up in the midst of it all.

  “Since they haven’t phoned, we must consider the possibility that this is not about money at all. That’s it’s not a matter of a regular … kidnapping. Both you and Christel must be willing to talk to us about other possibilities, about whether there might be …”